Navigating the Top Series: Trailblazing Executive Leaders Share Their Journeys and Lessons Learned: A Conversation with Dave DiGiolamo

David Craig Utts - The Resilient Leadership Guy: 0:13

Welcome to Unfazed Under Fire, the podcast that aims to support executives in deepening their impact and resiliency on the path to growing their enlightened leadership Tuning into your needs. Here's your host and moderator, seasoned executive coach and self-proclaimed end-of-the-road seeker, david Craig Utz.

Dave Digirolamo: 0:40

So hello and welcome back to Unfazed Under Fire. I'm David Craig Utz, the leadership resilient guy, and your host and moderator for the show. The reason why I launched this podcast was really to support leaders to develop their impact, their greater impact as leaders, but also because of the volatile, uncertain and crazy times that we're in now, with resilience becoming one of the top competencies that a leader has to have. We also address that issue on the show, and today I'm very excited to be launching a new series entitled Navigating the Top, where we talk about trailblazing executives who share their journey. They talk a little about their career, how they got to where they are today. We get to understand a little bit about their leadership philosophy and also learn how they may be tapping into new sets of practices and approaches to be resilient during these crazy times that we're in. And I'm doing this series also because I know that executives love to hear from other executives, because they understand what it's like to be in the line of fire every day dealing with similar challenges.

Dave Digirolamo: 1:45

In my first case yesterday, I'm honored to be joined by Dave DiGiolamo. Did I get that right? Yes, I'm Dave DiGiolamo, okay. Director of Audiovisual at Building Infrastructure Group is also known as BIG, and BIG is a highly respected company in the Washington DC area specializing in encabling for telecommunications networks and data centers. And Dave has been a leader in the AV business for over 20 years, having had a number of roles as a consultant, a sales leader, even the CEO of his own AV company. And I've had the great fortune of getting to know Dave as his executive coach way back in 2012. And we all kind of wish for those simpler times. You know I've seen him and I've seen Dave take on a much bigger CEO roles over since then.

Dave Digirolamo: 2:33

And, dave, I know you're a leader who understands the link between leadership, strategy, culture and execution, and we've stayed in touch over the past 12 years. I've been very impressed by your record of building high-performing teams and organizations as you've gone along, even during that difficult period between 2020 and 2021 with COVID. And you're also a husband and a father of three boys in college. One just exited, I think you said, into graduate school. So that's a little bit of lop off the finances there and that keeps your. I know that keeps your hands full and that you're proud of all that. My understanding. You live in the Northern Virginia area, yes, well, it's a pleasure to have you, so thanks for joining me on the show today.

Dave Digirolamo: 3:15

Well, thank you very much, David. I'm very excited to be here and, as you alluded to a minute ago, we've had, you know, over a decade of time getting to know each other. Now it's been a great pleasure getting to know you and understanding your perspective on leadership. It's been fantastic to talk with you over the years and I'm very excited to be part of your podcast today.

Dave Digirolamo: 3:33

Good Thanks, robin. I thought we'd start kind of taking a step back and getting to know Dave a little bit more and if you could share a little bit of your background and your journey that led you now that leading this audiovisual division that big, and sharing a bit about your career path and you know a few key experiences you've had along the way that have been seminal and forming you into the business leader you are today.

Dave Digirolamo: 3:56

Sure, I guess my first exposure to leadership really happened when I went into the United States Air Force. I was a young kid, at 19 years old. I had tried a year at college. That did not go swimmingly, so I ended up in the Air Force for four years. I did an enlistment for four years, which was really the first time I was exposed to leadership.

Dave Digirolamo: 4:21

And leadership in the military is different than leadership in the business world, but the principles of leadership, as I'm sure you're aware, are exactly the same. And in the military they put a very direct light on leadership. They will teach classes about leadership called leadership, and they put a light on that because leadership in the military is a life and death situation, so it's not optional and there's good leaders and bad leaders and so a lot of that. My first exposure to all of that was when I was a young kid very impressionable, and I always enjoyed it. In the military it's easy to excel. If you're a leader and you want to go to those classes and learn those things, you can do that.

Dave Digirolamo: 5:10

So I had the great fortune of being exposed to that in a textbook fashion very early on. Then, after I got out of that, I went back to school and finished my degree, met my awesome wife and got married. So then at that point I needed to find a job and it was time to go and work in the real world. So I fell back on my military training and ended up in electronics as a day one green technician in the AV industry. And once you fall into that industry, this industry, it's hard to get out of it, but that's it.

Dave Digirolamo: 5:47

It's a very small, tight industry. So that's kind of how I got my start in AV and since then I've done kind of all the roles in AV right Technician, and then engineering, and then project management, sales, sales management, ownership, operations management, kind of all of those roles. And now where I am today, my role, our company building infrastructure group, kind of has two sides to it. One's the structured cabling, one's the audio visual and I work with the whole team on the audio visual side to continue to grow that business within our larger business of building infrastructure group.

Dave Digirolamo: 6:23

That's great. Well, and I imagine, as you and I'm sure there's a number of leaders that kind of they stay in kind of one train finance or operations or sales you had the great fortune of really being in almost every role in the company that you now oversee, right? So what has that done for you as a leader, to know that you've played those different roles? What does that do for you as somebody that's kind of inspiring and motivating people to do their best?

Dave Digirolamo: 6:55

That's a great question and the answer is that sort of, with my experience that I had in a day one technician role was sort of seeing where those issues are and some problems with that.

Dave Digirolamo: 7:08

For example, our technicians are in the field all the time. They go to customer sites all day, every day, so sometimes the communication from the main office is lacking, and so I knew that and I felt that when I was in the field previously, and so those are things that I've been able to identify, having been there, that I can now address better, and I can also understand when some field technician comes to me and says, hey, you guys aren't communicating well enough with us. Then I say, oh, you're right, and I understand where that is coming from. Let's address it. So it does give you a very different perspective at least it has for me on sort of the different pain points of the different people along the chain of getting a project done, which is where project based company and so all the different pieces have to work together and everybody sometimes has different pain points. But that perspective has been very, very helpful for me to be able to relate.

Dave Digirolamo: 8:03

Well, the ability to develop rapport. I know you've been in those shoes. It's not like empathy, like pretending, like you try to imagine what you were, like you were in those shoes so you can really appreciate what they deal with every day. Well, as you, as you look at that's walking in. You know, you can remember your every day, any role we're walking in the first day and you're now the head of AV division for big. What kind of leadership principles guide you in that situation?

Dave Digirolamo: 8:30

or even on a day to day. When a conflict emerges, what do you pull from to help you effectively get grounded and present to deal with the challenges facing you in a day to day? Or when you're walking into a job for the first time, how do you orient yourself as a leader?

Dave Digirolamo: 8:49

It's not always easy. Yeah, true.

Dave Digirolamo: 8:54

I would say everybody would do it if it was that's right and it can definitely try you as a person and try your character at times. But I will tell you that one of the real principles that we've kind of grounded on is culture and how culture affects every other aspect of the business, and there's no question in my mind that that's in my mind, in our business, it's the single most important factor, in the sense that if you strongly and genuinely take care of your employees and your people at every level, they will in turn actually take care of your customers, which will in turn take care of your business books, and so we feel like, as a company, creating that culture is vital. So this starts at the interview process, the hiring process. There's an old saying that I heard 15 years ago that stuck with me every day is that you hire attitude and you teach aptitude.

Dave Digirolamo: 9:56

And that's how you really control your culture is you bring in the right attitude whether it's work ethic, honestly, just generally nice people right and you bring in people that will fit into the culture. It's a hard work environment. We are a construction type firm where we're doing a lot of hard work. It takes a certain type of person to do that and do it well and excel at it. And as we bring those people into the fold, you know you're going to have to work hard. If they have the right attitude, it's easy to fold them into the strategy and the general direction of the company. All is one. So alignment then becomes very, very important. Understand what the goals are, understand where the team is going, and that person with the right attitude will jump on board and run with you, I feel like always. So that has really been a key principle for us.

Dave Digirolamo: 10:53

Now, how would you define the kind of ground of your culture at big? What are you first day in during the hiring process? What are you letting employees know they're walking into when they get oriented and on boarded? And then, day to day, what do you want them to know about how we do things around here?

Dave Digirolamo: 11:14

So when you walk in our office, our company colors are orange and blue, so and it's bright orange it is bright orange when you walk in. As soon as you walk through the main door into the main office area, we have different words written on the wall big and painted on the wall, and orange lettering. It's loyalty, ethics. There's a bunch of them that really immediately will convey what our core principles are in that sense and it's really all about getting people who understand them on a day to day basis and to come together around that. So we really like that and we try to set that from day one across the board and people will either fit or not fit very quickly in those environments.

Dave Digirolamo: 12:06

There's a lot of accountability. There's not much drama or finger pointing on our team. So if you get a person in who says, hey, I didn't do my job because XYZ prevented me, we pretty much already know that that's really not always gonna be the case. So, yeah, we really try to instill the direction of the company from the very get go and it's really a loyalty to each other and a culture of understanding that there are days where I'm gonna do my job plus some of your job, and there's days you're gonna do your job, plus some of my job, and we're gonna take care of each other all the way through this thing, and that's really the mindset of the people that we have, thankfully.

Dave Digirolamo: 12:48

Well, that's awesome because, I mean, I think most human beings, if they are given an opportunity, that's kind of environment they'd like to be in, and yet there's a learning curve, for that sometimes right Doesn't mean that the person isn't a fit, but there's a learning curve. So what happens when somebody may not meet the values? I obviously not gonna fire them that day, because there's a learning process. So what do you do around supporting them? I mean, I think, like you can share, think of a story without naming names, but give me an example of how you help those people recognize the value of the values and learn how to align with them.

Dave Digirolamo: 13:31

Well, I can give you a specific instance and I won't name names, but we did have an instance where there was a situation that we didn't make a deadline happen and it actually was an internal deadline that we had that our team needed some certain things to be done by a certain date, and the person that was responsible for doing that, very late in the process, came back and just said, hey, we're not gonna make the date. And at that point I said, okay, well, that's not usually the way we do things. We figure out how, if we need more people or more time or whatever we're gonna, we'll figure out a way to do this. And it immediately hit me and I had a discussion with that person and I said this is exactly the feeling that we can never let our employee I mean our customers have from our employees.

Dave Digirolamo: 14:20

This is an exact perfect learning instance where delivery of bad news, late in the game to the stakeholders that could have easily been avoided. This is what my customers feel like if we ever do this to them. We can't ever let this happen. So you take that instance of an internal missed deadline and try to relate it to hey, our customers who that's what we care about right Is making sure they never experienced something like that. And that person was like well, I never really thought that by delivering bad news to you, you're delivering it to somebody else and that puts people in the chain in bad light. So that became very apparent and the person was completely understanding, just not having thought all the way through it.

Dave Digirolamo: 15:05

Yeah, so it happens and listen. It's easy to sit here and say our culture is perfect. Nobody's culture is perfect and ours is nowhere near perfect but it's an ongoing.

Dave Digirolamo: 15:15

it's an ongoing climb, so to speak, right An ongoing future.

Dave Digirolamo: 15:20

Yeah, yeah. Well, that's a great example. And you know, again, sometimes we have people that are coming from various backgrounds that may not have been the best experiences they've had, they don't know things, and to give them the gift of teaching them how to operate at this level of high performance and meritocracy and what that gives them and how that empowers them, is a really, really beautiful thing. I would imagine you've seen people, many people, blossom at big because they came into the culture, and I don't know if you have any good stories of that. If somebody that came in they were a little bit clumsy with the culture stuff and then became a champ, made me down the road, became a champion of culture.

Dave Digirolamo: 16:04

We have a ton of examples of those. We have a lot of examples of those and what we really have. It's interesting, david, because our company dynamic is that most of our company three quarters of our company are guys who are out on client sites every single day and so, bringing them into the office environment sometimes and feeling that culture more, they have an opportunity very quickly to kind of jump in. They know the company culture because they've been around. But when you live it day to day to day and then the guys on the client sites are also living that same culture, there've been a lot of examples where young kids come in.

Dave Digirolamo: 16:44

They've had a college culture or a bad company culture previously or something along those lines that were not structured the way we are and they come in and they love most people love it and they have the we try as part of our whole culture is to enable people at all levels to make decisions and let them stick, and part of that is the accountability and the ownership of your work product and so as all of that stuff starts developing, people run with it and they go and they start doing their training and they get excited about taking the next step. There are clear paths in our company for promotions and movement within the company. So, yeah, we have a lot of examples of people who come into a culture, get a little bit of culture shock at the beginning and then say, hey, let's rock and roll and I love it, and they, just like you said, they become the champions of it because they went from one side all the way to the other side of that pendulum swing.

Dave Digirolamo: 17:40

Well, when you have an emphasis on culture like this, there's a certain belief you have about human beings. There's a belief that if you get the heart, soul and mind aligned, not only will you get a great employee, you will give that employee an experience that they'll remember for the rest of their lives because it's meaningful and they're able to contribute and it's also satisfying to see the outcomes that they're a part of right. So, yeah, it's great. What strategies do you think and then maybe it's more of the same but what strategies do you use to really foster collaboration and maintain that culture? But, in addition to some of the things you said with the values and the onboarding, what are the things do you do that you find have an impact on ensuring that there's that strong sense of connectivity, collaboration and that positive experience of coming into work every day?

Dave Digirolamo: 18:39

So work is a grind right, the day-to-day work is a grind and that you can. You will build common experiences together that way in your work life every day. Our belief is that where you tighten up and where you learn about somebody's kids and their outside things are when you get together outside of work and if you have that level of trust and relationship with all the people in the company it can really really build that culture. So we approach that several ways and I'll give you an example. A huge number of us in the company are Washington Nationals baseball fans. I know that's hard to say right now for anybody who follows baseball, but we are. But so what? We you had a.

Dave Digirolamo: 19:25

World Series a couple of years ago. A few years ago, it was great.

Dave Digirolamo: 19:28

It's been a little tougher here lately, but so when the Nationals have their home opener which historically they always play the very first game of the year we shut down our office for the afternoon. We take the entire team down to the Washington National Stadium and we have an opening day party and it's everybody gets a ride down there together. That's one example. Another one that is coming up in about three or four weeks is that we do a company fishing trip. So we're located in Northern Virginia the Outer Banks of North Carolina is a five or six hour drive away and we go down there, we rent two or three houses on the beach together and we leave Friday. We shut the office down a little early Friday. Everybody drives to the Outer Banks. We go fishing on charter boats Saturday morning and then Saturday night they have chefs and stuff come in and cook a lot of the stuff that we caught and we have a big dinner Saturday night and Sunday everybody drives home.

Dave Digirolamo: 20:22

So we do a whitewater rafting trip once a year in the springtime. So we do all these things outside of work. That I mean you get elbow to elbow to somebody offshore fishing and catching fish together. You get a different level of relationship than you do at work and that's what we love.

Dave Digirolamo: 20:40

And then as far as keeping communication going and how you make sure everybody knows what's going on and having some level of transparency, what are some strategies you do around that?

Dave Digirolamo: 20:50

That's a tough one for us in an area that we're trying to get better at, because I have a saying just my personal belief is that almost every problem ever at work relates to a communication breakdown somewhere. Just communication is the source of most problems, and so we try the best that we can to communicate clearly, and often so we do. We have emails that go out all the time to the entire team. We have stuff like that. That's just communication. And then we try to do company meetings as often as we can.

Dave Digirolamo: 21:26

It's difficult in our company on the project nature of our business with the deadlines that we face, for all these different projects, to say, hey, we're gonna have an all hands meeting here. We have done that. We haven't done one in a couple of months, but that's the best way really is to get all the people in the room together and honestly, david, you know this, I'm sure, but people will air out some grievance sometimes and, as the guy that's standing in front of the group, you've got to answer them and address them clearly. You've got to be honest in what you said, transparent about what's going on. So if somebody airs a legitimate grievance, sometimes you got to stand up front and take it and just say you're right and we're gonna fix it. But yeah, when that happens, it's great, I think, because it gives you an opportunity again to connect on a deeper level when you're in those environments.

Dave Digirolamo: 22:14

And that's where you get to walk and talk as a leader right. That's where you demonstrate that we care about that right and by me taking a few bullets and collecting myself and coming back and they see all that right and they respect that. They come to respect that, I'm sure. Yes especially, we're gonna go into another territory which we talked about during the COVID lockdowns. I think we had an experience Tell me a little bit about that challenging time and having to make management decisions and yet wanting to maintain the culture that you built.

Dave Digirolamo: 22:50

Say a little bit about one of your favorite stories or any way. You wanna share what that was like, how you got through it and what came out the other side.

Dave Digirolamo: 23:01

So COVID was, is true for everybody extremely trying for us and our company. When the lockdowns happened in March of 2020, we sent everybody home and we brought everybody back three weeks later. That was it. We were out of the office for only three weeks. We've never had a real work from home policy. We've never had a hybrid type policy. We have been an in-person type culture Pros and cons right at the middle of COVID when you're doing that, for sure. But we it's good to have an alternative viewpoint and somebody to talk to when you're in those environments and things are really crazy. And so we brought everybody back.

Dave Digirolamo: 23:44

I'm very happy to say as a company, we did not let anybody go all the way through COVID. We kept our team together and I'll give you one quick example. This goes to our culture and how we operate. A lot of companies were decreasing staff, cutting hours, cutting pay, doing a lot of things that they had to do to survive. We turned it around and immediately, as soon as this thing went into full lockdown, we gave everybody additional PTO. We said, hey, if you need to take time off to take care of yourself or anybody else, the company's gonna pay for it.

Dave Digirolamo: 24:14

We took care of all of that stuff and we maintained everybody's annual review schedules. We took everything like that, stayed right on track. We really never rolled down the effects of COVID to the team as much as we could avoid it. That goes back to one of those principles on the wall, which is loyalty. We're very loyal to our employees and in turn the whole team is loyal to us and each other as well. So that was one of those times in our industry where we deal in electronics, you couldn't get them. I mean, we had months and months where we could not complete the supply chain, the supply chain.

Dave Digirolamo: 24:55

I'm miserable for this. Sorry it wasn't clear enough, but yeah.

Dave Digirolamo: 24:57

That was good, we got it, we got it, we got it.

Dave Digirolamo: 25:00

The supply chain was really difficult and really strained our business by not being able to deliver projects, and so everybody had to pitch in and do different things at different times to keep everything moving forward.

Dave Digirolamo: 25:14

But we were very, very lucky, and sometimes I think it's resilience, persistence. I don't know what individual no individual piece got us through that, but when we go through it as a team and we say we're gonna get through this no matter what, we had different people who came back to the table and said, hey, instead of using XYZ electronics that we can't get, let's try this other set that we've never used, let's bring it in, test it and let's roll it out to our customers. And so that's what we did to try to keep things moving. So people at every level of our company were, in a way, innovating ways to keep this business moving forward, and we did. We actually beat our revenue projections for 2020 that we created in 2019 before we ever knew what COVID was. And then 2021 also grew and 2022 was our best year ever. So we pushed through those barriers, but it was not necessarily easy.

Dave Digirolamo: 26:10

Well, I mean, and it must have been both harrowing and also rewarding to see that, both harrowing at those times and what are we gonna do? That equipment has got coming in. So, in situations like that, what did people do and how did the customers and this relates to the next thing is the link. Is all of this links to the customer experience? It's all about the customer experience for a company like yours.

Dave Digirolamo: 26:40

So the culture is a kind of it's, in a sense, models and emulates what it wants customers to experience. Is that, fair to say, absolutely. How did this, that time, impact? Well, to talk more, first generally, how the culture impacts the customer experience, and then we then go into that time and show how that really had muscle at a time when it was very challenging for the customer.

Dave Digirolamo: 27:08

So culture is everything to the customer experience and if your culture is really good and really strong, people have a generally happy demeanor. They're not on the job site, on client sites, bad mouthing the company or something like that which could happen if you had a toxic culture. But in our case, that culture is the foundation for our client success. We have a lot of clients who've been with us for 15, 20 years and it's because they are provided good service by people who are happy doing what they're doing and that really sums up our business model.

Dave Digirolamo: 27:41

To be frank with you, how that all related and going through COVID was that it wasn't always pretty. We had clients who were not happy with us when we said, hey, I can't get your box for eight months and you have remote workers who I can't provide you the communication systems to talk to them right now. That does not go well. That's a tough conversation to have and we came out of that. In fact, it's funny. I was talking with somebody just the other day and our assessment of COVID was we really excelled with most of our customers and we performed adequately enough to not lose the rest, and that's. It's not a great assessment, right, but it's an assessment. We didn't lose customers during that time, which we could easily.

Dave Digirolamo: 28:32

Yeah, there was a lot of reasons for it, but for some reason they stuck with you. Obviously, they knew the situation in hand, yes, but at the same time, it goes back to the experience prior to that and the consistency of your culture and the customer experience prior to that and the longevity your customers had with you. Yes, so there's a loyalty there too. Right, there's a customer loyalty.

Dave Digirolamo: 28:52

For sure.

Dave Digirolamo: 28:52

But you were able to. Customers are sticky to your brand, yes, and that's just, that's just awesome, and so, and then you have the results to show it All you know 2020, 2021 and 22,. You know, each year grew to your best year yet, right? Yes, so that's, that's just a testimony to that. How all of that builds leadership, culture, strategy, execution, results, right? Yes. It's an aligned system that works together.

Dave Digirolamo: 29:28

Oh yeah, for sure.

Dave Digirolamo: 29:29

And I'll tell you, david, kind of on a personal note and a personal story here we focused very heavily on culture. We've talked about that extensively at this point. But all the way through 2021-22, as a company, the majority owner was a gentleman, pat Barron, a fantastic guy, a really nice guy, us Army combat veteran, most compassionate, down-to-earth guy you could imagine, was the main leader of our company. Quite frankly, he was the majority owner and the outward-facing leader of our company. Unfortunately, surprisingly to everybody, he passed in his sleep on Christmas Eve of 2022.

Dave Digirolamo: 30:13

And so when you get in a situation like that and you wanna talk about trying leadership and what happens next, that is something that happened in our company that allowed a couple of people in our company to really step into a leadership role. Maybe not at first by choice, but you see, where we talked about how people step into the next role and how that's built in the company, culture has not changed one bit, david. I mean not one bit. It is the same company to the core that it was before Pat left us. So it's a situation where it's. But you talk about a case study in leadership. You get rocked like that on Christmas and unexpected it really was for everybody, at every level of our company. And I mean, you come back after Christmas and you see three or four grown men standing around crying on each other's shoulder literally not fitably.

Dave Digirolamo: 31:13

It changes you as a person and it changes the company. It doesn't change the culture, but the company of course changed, but it strengthened a lot of things and it's sad that it's his legacy partially, but it really Absolutely.

Dave Digirolamo: 31:28

I was gonna say that it's his past legacy.

Dave Digirolamo: 31:30

It really is, and what he built as his culture and his company has not. Here we are eight or 10 months later and it is as good as it was ever, or better, so it's just a testament to him.

Dave Digirolamo: 31:45

Well, let me add a memorial to him. Let me tell me one or two things you learned from Pat that have impacted your leadership and changed you as a leader.

Dave Digirolamo: 31:56

I probably shouldn't tell this story, but I'm gonna anyway. I knew of Pat. He had a huge reputation in the industry. So before I joined BIG, I knew who he was and I knew that he was kind of this bigger than life guy. And so as I was exploring, joining his company, pat and I had set up a lunch date so we were ready to meet and I was extremely busy and not looking at my calendar and I got a phone call from Pat about 1230, when we were supposed to meet at 12 o'clock and he says hey, dave, are we still meeting today? I'd never met this guy before and I said well, I said, pat, I'm sorry, this is what happened, I just actually missed it. I said I understand if you don't wanna continue the conversation, and his character is so compassionate. He said oh no, it happens to everybody. Let's meet again.

Dave Digirolamo: 32:56

And so eight years later, in essence, david, I stood him up for an interview. How many times can you stand a guy up for an interview and think you're gonna get a second chance? It just doesn't happen. It was one of the first times in my life I'd flat out missed a meeting and I flat out missed it. And he said hey, come on back and let's do this, let's have a conversation. And here we are, nine years later, and so that immediately says to me this guy is understanding, compassionate, leading a very hard charging company and still wants to meet with me after I stood him up. That was a big deal to me, a really big deal, and that's his character.

Dave Digirolamo: 33:36

But now he knew of you, though he knew of your reputation in the industry as well.

Dave Digirolamo: 33:41

I mean, yes, and we had had a couple of phone conversations and stuff like that, so it wasn't a blind, a totally blind thing, but we'd never met in person and we were gonna talk about joining forces and doing our thing. So it was a big meeting and I was not there, so it was pretty bad.

Dave Digirolamo: 33:59

It was pretty bad. Well, we do all do things like that and it's part of being human and we have to have compassion. It's like when somebody has compassion for us, it's easier for us to have compassion for ourselves, and that's a big one that I talk with my leaders today about how important self-compassion you really can't be compassionate unless you learn how to be compassionate with yourself and give yourself a break from time to time when you do things like that. Right?

Dave Digirolamo: 34:24

That's true.

Dave Digirolamo: 34:25

So yeah, yeah.

Dave Digirolamo: 34:27

It's very true.

Dave Digirolamo: 34:28

Now, you and I have also talked about this. We live in quite kind of crazy times, right, and there's almost so much noise and every day it seems like and something else is happening out there that makes your head spin. How have you found, how have you found, work as being a respite to that? Or how do you deal with, what have you seen and what challenges has that brought to your business? Like, a lot of times we don't talk about this and I'm not trying to make this huge deal, but I think it's important that we start talking about it with business leaders Like how is the world and the political situation, the war and all the stuff that's going on? Of course we got kicked by COVID and then it just kept on rolling right. It's been one thing after another. How have you found that's affected the way you lead, the way you, if you've seen it impact your employees in different ways, if you've seen it having effects and how you hire and manage people? I'm just curious what you would say about that.

Dave Digirolamo: 35:33

It's a huge issue and, you're right, we don't talk about it enough. It is a situation where, if you paid attention and gave weight to all of those things, you would never get out of the mud on a daily basis. You just couldn't. There's just no way you could rise above it unless you mentally said I'm gonna get out of this news cycle that goes on or whatever. Call it the news cycle, the politics, the news is the politics. Anymore there's no such thing as news, it's all politics. But and politics one side or the other. There's just no common ground.

Dave Digirolamo: 36:09

And it's interesting and this is a little diversion from business, but a minute ago we were talking about alignment and getting people on the same page and all of those things that go into a culture. And if you think back to an event like 9-11, the weeks after 9-11, our country was one entity with one mission and one mindset. It didn't matter Financial classes, business, none of that mattered. That's true. Everybody had an alignment around an event that happened. If you can, in our business, relate this story back to our business, which is that our alignment is our work, that we have to do eight hours a day, every day. That's together. We're going to do that.

Dave Digirolamo: 36:55

We have a saying, and we've talked about this a little bit and I'm going to keep it rated G here. But our saying is to rise above the BS and understand that, yes, we could throw a little dirt at this group, they could throw a little dirt at us, whatever. All that is internal or external, whatever it all is. Now, if you lump in all the outside factors, like the news, the politics, the economy, these are all things you can't control, you can't fix, you can't change. If you just, as a group, rise above it and we say that to each other all the time just rise above the BS. And I hate to use the French, but that's the idea, that's fine.

Dave Digirolamo: 37:33

It's forget about the noise in the background and maintain a focus on something that's really important, which, for us, is our work and our team and our culture and our experience for our customers. That's what, if we can just stay on that and drive towards that when we're in the office together. Outside of that right, my focus is my family, and so you have different focuses at different times of your day, potentially, but you can't get distracted with all that garbage. It's just too much noise to process for people.

Dave Digirolamo: 38:04

Right, I agree with that, and I think you pointed back to what an organization and a great culture can do for its employees and its customers, and that's create a protective bubble. You can go and have meaningful endeavor, connect to other human beings, which lockdowns kind of took us away from. Yes, and now you have that place at work, you can go out and you can. You rubbed shoulders of a fishing boat trying to pull a wheel in your blues, whatever you're catching, and or go to the baseball game and you can. You know, you know, go through those projects and get to the deadline and please the customer, and that is, and then you can go. And then, because of that, you know and I don't think that still some organizations get the impact of giving a person a good day so they have the energy to go back home and be loving with their family, right, that that is in of itself a gift that a great culture gives and a leader that cares gives to his employees or her employees, and that you're, you're marking it down because I agree, you know.

Dave Digirolamo: 39:18

I look at, for example, the Maui situation, which we have lost as many lives likely in some 2000 children are missing, and we're not galvanizing around like that. We should be galvanizing around like that, like 9, 9, 11. To me that's right, that's right and that's not happening. But you can't, you can't, you can't scream to the top of your lungs to get anybody to listen to you about that. Right, what you have to do is take that in and say what can I give to the people around me? It's almost like you have to transmute that, and that's a practice of resilience that I get in my clients, like how do you transmute that ache that you feel into care? Yes, and give back the way you can. And, and at some point we all might be called to a greater task. Right, that may happen, but it'll be obvious when that happens. In the meantime, we've got our jobs, We've got our families, we've got our friends, and that's a great way to, a beautiful way to to turn that around and as if you will, right, yes, I agree, and it's.

Dave Digirolamo: 40:18

There are events that happen that impact us there that we can't avoid. Right, we try to, as I said, we rise above the noise level. I'll call it that, and that's the day to day garbage that comes at you. But these events, some of these events, are really big. The Maui fires, unbelievably large event in history, and it's an event that you can't just gloss over and say let's disregard it like you can on the, on the daily news and stuff like that, and when people are actually impacted by these things COVID was another one that just obviously everything since COVID has felt large, like you know I've. Everything just feels more intense. I don't know why that is. It does for me and anyways, it feels like these events are more intense. But there are certain ones you do need to to pay mine to, and the majority of the small stuff is noise in the background.

Dave Digirolamo: 41:07

And you do your best to contribute and give back and help in any way you can.

Dave Digirolamo: 41:11

Yeah, for sure.

Dave Digirolamo: 41:12

Yeah Well, and just going back in another direction, to if you would think back on your career and, like you, become the leader you become today, not by accident. I mean, it is a certain way life happens and you meet life, so it's not like you figured it all out ahead of time.

Dave Digirolamo: 41:30

Right, you know, that's how the challenges that come and how you approach those challenges. If you think about, you know, you know a highlight or a moment in your professional journey that was really galvanizing for you around leadership and and and, and that this perspective around culture. Would you do you have a time that you remember when that was and would you share a little bit about that?

Dave Digirolamo: 41:53

I mean unfortunately. The first one that pops in my head, david, is when the owner passed unexpectedly and yeah, much of that rocks and huge and it rocks people.

Dave Digirolamo: 42:04

You know we were all close friends with Pat, so that rocks you on an individual, personal level as well as business, culturally and everything else. So that's kind of the top of the mind, one that we've already talked about as far as. As far as that being tested career wise being tested is, I've had lots of failures along the way that have built character or leadership or however you want to look at it. But you know I had my own business for a while that I closed down with it. You know it was trying and difficult at different times and shutting it down was a challenge for me and felt like a personal failure at that time. And now, looking back, it was really an opportunity to be tested to my core of everything that I had in my character, to get through all of that.

Dave Digirolamo: 42:52

And so you go through those experiences and I now have a saying on my whiteboard that says don't fear failure, fear not fear being in the same place next year as you are today. In other words, the failure is not the problem. Lack of advancements. The problem not advancement, it's lack of everything going forward. Lack of forward movement is where a person can get stuck, and so personal growth, I should really. That's really what is personal growth is what it is, and so when you go through an event like that, yes, maybe on the day it's all occurring it might feel like a failure, but you've got to come out of it and grow from it and keep on going.

Dave Digirolamo: 43:33

Well, there's something that you seem to be Linding within yourself that is resilient. Right, there is, whether it's a Phoenix from ashes metaphor, or, you know, getting kicked in the gut and going back and and coming back stronger, because resilience to me it's not just about getting through a tough time, it's coming back stronger because of the tough time. Sure, like so if you, you would say, in those Moments, quiet moments, obviously you took action, you got up off the couch, you didn't stay in a you know, didn't stay melted, but as you move forward, what are some things you do that helps you develop and continue to moving forward and and motivate you in a certain way to To honor what has to be honored, because you have to honor the grief, you have to honor the sadness, you have to be with the experience. I mean that's part of life. Sure, we sometimes try to raise too much forward away from the pain, and the pain itself is it can be a gift in a certain way, not that we want to feel it right, because it does something in us. It softens us, makes more open, and you look at the pat it became very.

Dave Digirolamo: 44:40

It was a very compassionate, caring guy. He came by that honestly, somewhere along the line. For sure, he made certain, he made certain decisions along the line about that. So if you could say a little bit about what you do to define that Resourcefulness and you to get through tough times like that, what are some things that you do?

Dave Digirolamo: 45:00

That's a tough one to pinpoint and and this you know I feel like there's a lot of stuff that we've talked about that you can learn. You can learn Leadership, you can learn these different things by studying. Even, as you pointed out, compassion is something that you can. You can learn and get into I Hesitate a little bit to say so well, and you can learn self motivation. Without a doubt, you can train yourself to say I'm gonna get up and get this done today. I Think, for people who've been through the military, you get ingrained with this certain yeah you are gonna get up there, you are gonna make your bed.

Dave Digirolamo: 45:37

If you don't, I'm gonna bang a trash can lid in your ear until you you learn a piece of self motivation and, quite honestly, once you, I I feel like being motivated easier than being not Motivated.

Dave Digirolamo: 45:55

And so once you learn that, and once you go through an experience like I did in the military, I feel like that was so impactful on Understanding that that they really don't care that that pile of rocks gets moved from over there to over there. They just want you to do it and you've got to be motivated to go do it. So you go do it when they tell you to go do it and you start to learn a I don't want to call it resilience, but you learn a motivation internally to say, okay, it's, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it now, I'm gonna do it later, I'm just gonna get it done and get it done now and that's the end of it and that's an. It becomes After an event like the military. It becomes part of your character that you have no choice but to go get it done. And so it's an interesting question, david, and I don't know if it how much you can learn that. I guess you can, because I did.

Dave Digirolamo: 46:45

But well, I think, I think you, I think what happened my my takeover on that is the Military taught you how to find that spark inside and it's an inside out game that really points again that, yes, the external job is to move the rocks one point to the other. Your brain is telling you I don't want to effin, do that, right. But then there's something inside that says I'm gonna move and I'm gonna do that. And and when you start, you know my Significant others are therapists, as she talks about, always with a client stating opposite action. Like you don't feel like getting up to do a run, do it anyway. You don't feel like going over and you know so showing some compassion to somebody else, but you know it's right thing to get up and do it anyway and practice doing it anyway, and it's kind of opposite action. I love that. And I think there's also stoicism is another Avenue that you can learn that, and that the stoic said don't let make life so important that you don't show up for it.

Dave Digirolamo: 47:44

Right, you know, like don't make you know don't like so it's. It's something about showing up and doing your best right. It's not about being perfect we're not, and we learn along the way. There's no way I'm ever gonna do it perfectly. I'm gonna do it better than I did before, and Perfection is still something I may seek, but I know I'm that it's always good. It always can get better every day. Oh for sure, you can always improve every day, right.

Dave Digirolamo: 48:09

And another piece of that same thing is, if you don't show up and if you aren't motivated to do whatever it is that you're supposed to be doing, your team and the people around you and not just from a leadership perspective, but from an every different level of it that makes up a team You're letting somebody down next to you. If you aren't doing, if you aren't Naturally inclined to get it done and you decide not to do it, you've let somebody down along the way somewhere. It's an automatic let down to somebody else if you're not doing your stuff and that's so some of his motivation to not Let those others down.

Dave Digirolamo: 48:48

Well, that's getting outside of yourself. And you know, we've you've run across probably narcissistic You've been your life people that are totally about themselves, or or people that that that tend to be at takers and at givers. You know, those are people that don't fit into your culture, right? You know? So we're looking for people that want to contribute and get outside of themselves, yes, for the sake of something greater. And and you know, you that big, which is great name for Foreigner, but to say you created a vision that it's bigger than everybody else To accomplish something that we can't do by Individually, right, and you're instilling that in your culture.

Dave Digirolamo: 49:26

It sounds like, oh we tried to for sure, but it's funny. Every company, every Environment, every relationship, that's true. I mean, take a husband wife relationship. If you're not showing up and putting your effort in, I mean it's right and I think it's just true as humans, that You've got to be there, you've got to be present, you got to try, and if that means getting off the couch tomorrow, that's what you got to do. I mean it's just part of what I want to call the dude.

Dave Digirolamo: 49:54

It's called living. That's it. Yeah Well, this is. This has been a great conversation. I just want to give you an opportunity to round it out If there's anything else you want to share For those maybe rising in the executive ranks or a certain level of Ranks, or aspiring to be in the executive ranks, or or maybe looking for some insights into how to grow their leadership impact. Anything you want to say that you know summarizes or brings it together today.

Dave Digirolamo: 50:24

That's a little bit of a loaded question it is. If you're considering kind of the next step or growing in the leadership, do it there's. There are a lot of resources out there. Call David, he can help you for sure.

Dave Digirolamo: 50:40

But there's a lot of.

Dave Digirolamo: 50:42

There are a lot of ways to grow and sometimes if you don't have somebody telling you we talked, we alluded to this early in this conversation that Some people just have not been exposed to it or haven't been told about it, haven't had a military experience which I keep harping on that, but that was. It was because it's a strong and short time frame and a deep impact. But Even over a natural career, some people haven't been exposed to really strong leaders and had somebody to emulate and Take that chance. If you're listening to this, you're somewhat interested in leadership and Find somebody. Call David, call somebody that can help you Own your leadership and you everybody has these traits inherently in them. You just have to understand them, reach in there and grab them and own it and just go do it. So the best thing I could say is, if you're Toiling with your leadership or trying to understand it in greater clarity, is Spend time studying it, understand where you are and where you're trying to go and make a plan to get there, and call David. He'll get you too.

Dave Digirolamo: 51:49

I didn't, I didn't pay him to do that.

Dave Digirolamo: 51:50

No, no later.

Dave Digirolamo: 51:52

I mean I think I think it's, you know it is instructor, that you know everybody has that kind of leader within them and there's something that has to Spark. It has to be an interest and a desire to be that if you're not interested in that, don't go down that path until it spark. It does take, as you're saying. You've been through situation of COVID and losing pad and other situations. I just don't remember the days back at ABS with Bob, with Bob zillion right and and Patrick, and now that was a crazy, a little bit of a crazy time too, but you know it was a lot of fun too. I have fun memories of those days.

Dave Digirolamo: 52:24

Yeah, yeah for sure, and that that it is very helpful also to have other people to balance these ideas off of. So if you can openly talk about leadership with somebody else, it's tremendously helpful. A lot of cultures and companies probably don't outwardly talk about leadership and use those words and and if you're in that environment, find somebody that you can talk to about leadership and what that means and and how to grow into that and and it's there, is there for the taking. You just have to go take it.

Dave Digirolamo: 52:55

That's right. Very well said. Well, Dave, I appreciate you coming on this show today and spending your your time with me today. I also want to thank everybody else out there that's listening. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to join us on on phased under fire today. I hope you found there's a number of nuggets in there. I hope you mind a few and I look forward to seeing you next time on phased under fire. Thanks for showing up. Have a great day.